University of Exeter

The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of Mines were established in 1838, 1855, 1863, and 1888 respectively. These institutions formed the University of Exeter when it received its royal charter in 1955. In post-nominals, the University of Exeter is abbreviated as Exon. (from the Latin Exoniensis); this is the suffix given to honorary and academic degrees from the university.

The university has four campuses: Streatham and St Luke's (both in Exeter); and Truro and Penryn (both in Cornwall). The university is primarily located in the city of Exeter, where it is the principal higher education institution. Streatham is the largest campus; it contains many of the university's administrative buildings. The Penryn campus is maintained in conjunction with Falmouth University under the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) initiative. The Exeter Streatham Campus Library holds more than 1.2 million physical library resources, including historical journals and special collections. The annual income of the institution for 2024–25 was £680.7 million, of which £136.9 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £678.9 million.

Exeter was one of the pre-World War II local university colleges granted university status in the 1950s, as part of the second wave of civic universities. In 2012, Exeter joined the Russell Group of research-intensive UK universities. It is also a member of Universities UK, the European University Association, and the Association of Commonwealth Universities and an accredited institution of the Association of MBAs (AMBA).

History

The university's origins can be traced back to three separate educational institutions that existed in the city of Exeter and in Cornwall in the middle of the 19th century.

University College of the South West of England

To celebrate the educational and scientific work of Prince Albert, and inspired by the Great Exhibition of 1851, Exeter School of Art in 1855 and the Exeter School of Science in 1863 were founded. In 1868, the Schools of Art and Science relocated to Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Queen Street, Exeter, and, with support from the University of Cambridge, became the Exeter Technical and University Extension College in 1893. Arthur W. Clayden was appointed as the college’s first ever principal.

In 1900 its official title was changed to the Royal Albert Memorial College and the college moved to Bradninch Place in Gandy Street. The college was again renamed to the University College of the South West of England in 1922 after the college was incorporated under the Companies Act and included on the list of institutions eligible to receive funds from the then University Grants Committee. As was customary for new university institutions in England in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the college prepared students for external degrees of the University of London.

Alderman W. H. Reed, a former mayor of Exeter, donated Streatham Hall on the Streatham Estate to the new University College in 1922. Streatham Hall was renamed to Reed Hall after its benefactor. At the same time, the first principal of the University College, later Sir Hector Hetherington (1920–24), persuaded the Council of the college to buy a major portion of the Streatham Estate. A slow move to the Streatham Estate from the centre of the city occurred over time. The first new building erected on the Streatham Estate was the Washington Singer building; the foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), then President of the University College of the South West of England. The building was opened in 1931. The first of the purpose-built halls of residence, Mardon Hall, opened in 1933. The second academic building on the estate was the Roborough Library named in recognition of the interest taken in the development of the college by the first Lord Roborough, one of its early benefactors. Roborough Library was completed around 1939.

The University College of the South West of England became the University of Exeter and received its royal charter in 1955, exactly one hundred years after the formation of the original Exeter School of Art. Queen Elizabeth II presented the charter to the university on a visit to Streatham the following year.

Campuses

Streatham Campus

Streatham is the main campus, sitting on a hillside one side of which looks down across Exeter city centre. The Independent has described the campus environment as "sublime". The campus has several galleries, including the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. A Sculpture Walk includes pieces by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. There is a bar called the "Ram" and a bar (previously called the "Ewe") within a nightclub called the Lemon Grove (or "Lemmy"), both run by the University of Exeter, formerly run by the Students Guild. The campus hosts a medical centre, a counselling service, a children's day-care centre and numerous catering outlets. Many halls of residence and some self-catering accommodation are located on this campus or in the near vicinity. The Northcott Theatre resides on the campus.

In the early 2000s, the university benefited from an investment program worth more than £235 million. New student accommodation was constructed, including Holland Hall, named after the former vice-chancellor of the same name. Sports facilities, including a professional-standard tennis centre, have been completed in addition to an upgrade of the Students' Guild building.After a donation from the ruler of the Sharjah emirate, Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, an alumnus of the university, an extension was added to the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies building. He has donated more than £5m since 2001. In 2006, the Department of Drama completed a major renovation with the construction of the state of the art Alexander Building, named after the university's former Chancellor Lord Alexander. The Department of Biosciences is based in three buildings on the Streatham Campus: Geoffrey Pope, the Henry Wellcome building for Biocatalysis and the Hatherly Laboratories. The department has recently received significant investment to further develop its facilities, particularly with improvements to the Geoffrey Pope building.

On the Streatham Campus, the Business School is spread over three buildings, located in close proximity to each other: Building:One, Xfi Building and Streatham Court. Building:One houses the Business School's MBA suite, La Touche café and several modern lecture theatres and seminar rooms. The Xfi Building is home to the school's Bloomberg Suite, a specialist IT room for detailed financial market data, and next to this is the Student IT Suite, also equipped with specialist software. Streatham Court is where you will find the Business School's Career Zone and Study Abroad Team, as well as the specialist Finance and Economics Experimental Laboratory at Exeter (FEELE), and high capacity, recently refurbished teaching rooms.

Organisation and administration

Governance

The governance framework of the university is in its royal charter which was granted in 1955. The council is the university's governing body, with responsibility for institutional policies and financial, estates and legal matters. Academic governance is provided by the Senate which is responsible for teaching and learning, examinations and research.

The chancellor is the chief ceremonial officer of the university and presides over occasions such as degree ceremonies. The vice-chancellor is the chief academic and executive officer and is supported by four deputy vice-chancellors. The current chancellor is Sir Michael Barber, who succeeded Paul Myners at the start of 2022. The vice-chancellor and president is Professor Lisa Roberts who joined the university as vice-chancellor in September 2020, following Sir Steve Smith's retirement.

The university's visitor is Charles III.

The university organises its academic and administrative departments into three academic faculties and eight professional service divisions. Each faculty contains a number of subject disciplines, institutes and research centres. The faculties are led by a Pro-vice-chancellor who reports to a University Executive Board and the Provost. The university annually measures its performance relative to another ten peer universities which includes Durham, St Andrews, UCL and Warwick. The universities are chosen because, like Exeter, they are research-intensive, offer a broad range of disciplines, perform strongly in league tables, and function with similar quantities of financial resources.

Centre for Maritime Historical Studies

The Centre for Maritime Historical Studies was formed in 1991 to promote a wider understanding of the significance of maritime history within the world of historical scholarship. Some of the supported programmes are:

Naval History

Maritime History

Finances

In June 2026, the university announced proposals placing around 500 staff at risk of redundancy, with approximately 150 academic roles expected to go. The cuts were concentrated in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, where disciplines including History, English, Modern Languages and Politics faced reductions of around 25%. The University and College Union described the proposals as a "stunning failure of leadership" and announced it would ballot for industrial action and move a vote of no confidence in Vice-Chancellor Lisa Roberts. The university said it hoped to achieve the changes through voluntary measures and to avoid compulsory redundancies where possible.

Coat of arms

The university coat of arms symbolises the university's historical associations with the locality. The triangular gold castle with three towers comes from Exeter's coat of arms and represents Rougemont Castle, as alluded to by the red background. The 15 gold bezants (Byzantine gold coins) that appear around the edge of the shield are from the arms of the Duchy of Cornwall and represent Cornwall, while the green cross on the white background is from the city of Plymouth's coat of arms.

Academic profile

Admissions

In the 2024/25 academic year, the student body consisted of 33,105 students, composed of 23,500 undergraduates and 9,605 postgraduate students.The university is consistently designated as a 'high-tariff' institution by the Department for Education, with the average undergraduate entrant to the university in recent years amassing between 145–152 UCAS Tariff points in their top three pre-university qualifications – the equivalent of AAA to A*AA at A-Level. Based on 2022/23 HESA entry standards data published in domestic league tables, which include a broad range of qualifications beyond the top three exam grades, the average student at the University of Exeter achieved 163 points – the 21st highest in the United Kingdom. In 2015, the university gave offers of admission to 90.8% of its applicants, the 2nd highest amongst the Russell Group.

In the 2018/19 admission cycle, the university gave out offers to only 4.7% of international applicants to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of surgery (BMBS) programme making it one of the most competitive medical school for international applicants in the UK; in comparison 24.7% of UK/EU applicants received offers in the same admission cycle. In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 75:6:19 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female to male ratio of 55:45.

Rankings and reputation

In the main rankings of universities in the United Kingdom the university is currently placed between 11th and 18th.

In the 2015/16 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Exeter placed 93rd.

Exeter was ranked 34th on the annual list of the top 500 major universities worldwide in the Leiden Rankings (2015).

In the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2020 Subject Rankings, Exeter University ranked 11th in the world for public administration. In the QS World University Subject Rankings 2020, Exeter ranked 10th in the world for sport and health sciences and 14th for engineering in minerals and Mining.

The university was named the Sunday Times University of the Year 2013. It was named Times Higher Education University of the Year 2007.

Research

There are approximately 70 research centres and institutes within the university, including the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, the Institute of Cornish Studies, the Environment and Sustainability Institute and the Marchmont Observatory.

The Centre for Leadership Studies, now part of the University of Exeter Business School, was established in 1997 as an institute for research and advanced study into leadership theory.

Student life

Students' Guild

Students at Exeter are represented by a Students' Guild, which has an active role in campaigning at local and national levels. It is run by five elected sabbatical officers who act as executive directors and trustees: Guild President, Education Officer, Societies and Employability Officer, Communities and Equality Officer and Student Living Officer, Additionally to this, there are ten non-executive directors, five of which are elected student trustees and the remaining five external trustees. There are also other non-sabbatical officers representing areas of the student population and student activities areas. These are elected by students in a series of elections throughout the academic year.

There are more than 250 affiliated student societies, including a large variety of hobbies, communities, and political interests.

The Debating Society, which predates establishment of the university, started life in 1893 as the Exeter Debating Society at the Royal Albert Memorial College, and has played host to many notable speakers including Anthony Eden, H. H. Asquith, Ludovic Kennedy, Michael Foot and Stephen Fry. From 2012, a debating scholarship supported by alumni of the Debating Society has been made available.

Bracton Law Society (or "BLS") was established in 1965 and became the largest student society at the University of Exeter in October 2016, with more than 1,040 members. The society has received national recognition as one of the largest and most successful student law societies in the United Kingdom. In 2018, BLS was disbanded after 5 of its members, including committee members, were found to be engaged in a racist and misogynist group chat.

Exeter Student Volunteers is a volunteering agency within the students' guild which runs its own projects with members of the local community that are run by volunteers and provides further volunteering opportunities through links with external partner organisations. There is a RAG (Raising and Giving) group which exists to raise money for five nominated charities, and collects in town centres around Britain every weekend. RAG events are run by students, under the co-ordination of a full-time member of staff. The main aim of these societies and activities groups is to provide opportunities for student development.

Sport

The Exeter University Athletic Union (AU) is the organisation responsible for administering all aspects of sporting activity at the university. Activities range from recreational sport to competitive fixtures at local, regional, national, and international level. The AU is a separate body from the Students' Guild and is run by four members of staff based in the Athletic Union Office. The AU runs 52 Sports Clubs which have a combined membership of more than 5,000 students. An additional 3,000 students take part in intramural sport and sports volunteering in the local community.

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